Navigant Research Blog

Funding R&D for Improved Advanced Batteries

Ian McClenny — June 8, 2017

The battery of the future must meet the performance standards of industry stakeholders in the motive and stationary energy storage sectors. Navigant Research anticipates the following criteria will be key in the development of new battery advancements going forward:

Lower $/kilowatt costs on power-intensive operations of less than
1 hour

Improved energy density (kilowatt/kilogram or kilowatt/liter)

Step change cycle life improvements across both stationary and motive applications

Going forward, next-generation advanced batteries will compete with commercially available, mature advanced battery technology manufactured by large, well-funded multinational conglomerates. To do so, new advanced batteries will need to deliver more kilowatt of power per kilowatt-hour of energy to meet the power and energy needs of vehicles and multiple benefit applications on the grid.

Government and Private Sector Support

To meet the performance criteria mentioned above, government and private sector support of clean energy technology development will remain a critical driver for the commercialization of these advanced batteries. For example, Mission Innovation (MI) is a consortium of 22 countries and the European Union that have agreed to accelerate global clean energy R&D by providing funding for new efforts through countrywide and statewide programs. All member nations vowed to double their R&D spending on clean energy by 2020, including the United States, China, France, and Australia. The second MI Ministerial event, which showcases innovations and debates ideas around new energy technologies, is being held in Beijing during June 2017.

National Commitments to Clean Energy

(Source: Mission Innovation)

ARPA-E

For the US storage industry, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has provided dozens of energy storage companies with funding to bring their technologies to market over the past 6 plus years. With the US Department of Energy under fire through the past several months, the future of ARPA-E was unclear, leaving several companies worried. ARPA-E is back up and running and recently received a $15 million boost from this year’s congressional budget instead of being eliminated, as previously proposed by the Trump administration. It is tasked to identify and support revolutionary energy inventions and energy technology advances, which requires constant evolution of its programming focus. This is accomplished by establishing dynamic technical agendas designed to accelerate innovation in high potential areas.

Strategic Advantage

Companies currently working to commercialize new advanced battery technologies that partner with large, well-funded technology and/or manufacturing companies now moving into the energy storage sector will be at a strategic advantage. There have been several examples of this happening in the past year; L3 Technologies’ acquisition of Open Water Power (OWP) is one of the most recent. L3 is a provider of communication, electronic, and sensor systems for government and commercial technologies. Its acquisition of OWP allows L3 to further develop and utilize OWP’s high energy density undersea power generation technologies used in unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and other maritime devices. Navigant Research anticipates that advanced battery companies that show progress toward commercialization like OWP will likely receive investment or will be acquired by large technology manufacturers.

Providing adequate funding and opportunities for companies to develop new energy storage technologies is essential to the long-term evolution of the entire energy industry. Ensuring that we have the best and brightest minds working on our toughest energy storage problems and that venture startups continue to emerge is contingent on reliable funding from both government and the private sector.